


A Difference In Etiquette

by perceptivefics



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Worship, Chubby Karkat, Face-Sitting, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Hand Jobs, M/M, Nook Eating, Nookworms, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 17:01:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11559552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perceptivefics/pseuds/perceptivefics
Summary: Eridan just wanted to have another nice visit with his matesprit, but he gets a little unexpected surprise when he takes a nap in Karkat's recuperacoon. Things spiral away into the Land of Impulse and Pheromones from there.





	A Difference In Etiquette

**Author's Note:**

> I'M STRESSED. Have an Erikar. It's chaptered because I'm pretty much writing this in the hours I have before work.
> 
> **CW: unwanted nookworm intrusion (which gives Eridan a very nice dream) ; Karkat saves the day**

One of these days, Eridan  _ swore  _ he would convince Karkat to be the one visiting  _ his  _ hive for once. Of course it didn’t have to be the whole thing, he insisted - just the part that was above water! It wasn’t like he expected Karkat to magically grow gills or anything (or for the tiny vestigial flaps on his neck to start working). But going  _ all the way inland  _ to visit him anytime they wanted to hang out was beginning to be a chore, especially because Eridan was not one for a lot of physical effort and travel always winded him without the aid of his seahorse lusus. He could only go that way riding him so far before it was too much of a risk, and he had to strike the rest of the way on foot.

 

They, of course, had gone over this conversation several times before. But it always ended the same: Karkat would argue it was just as long and harrowing a distance to Eridan’s hive, Eridan would say he needed to get out more, Karkat would reply  _ absolutely not,  _ and things would ultimately continue with business as usual. So when Eridan sent out the notice to his potential matesprit that he was going to pop in for another visit, it was all the same formula.

 

Eridan didn’t mind the routine; he minded the effort. But trying to get the lowblooded object of his affections to leave his hive was like pulling teeth, and he was  _ so close  _ to making this red arrangement work with Karkat that he didn’t want to ruin his chances by rousing the other’s ire. Worst case scenario, Eridan supposed they could always just go back to the comfortable pale setup they had before he got a little too frisky with his pheromones one day. But even the idea of  _ that  _ happening was a touch hurtful. He was a very all-or-nothing sort of troll; which Karkat knew already. Of course he did. He had to be at least  _ aware  _ of it, else he likely wouldn’t have agreed to give this a try.

 

It didn’t require that Karkat throw himself off the deep end (so to speak) right away - Eridan was intensely committed once he made up his mind, but he had also tried learning a little more patience of late. Karkat hadn’t told him no, and that was where they were at right now. Testing the waters. It did have benefits though: Karkat was now considerably more amicable whenever he visited, and went out of his way to have gifts and activities and creature comforts prepared with Eridan specifically in mind. It was an additional layer of treatment beyond what he’d gotten while he was in Karkat’s diamond, and he liked what the lowblood tried to do for him, so it was a sweet change of pace.

 

Kind of like right now, when he finally showed up on Karkat’s doorstep. Eridan had an entire bag with him to stay for the week - because when Eridan visited, he  _ visited.  _ There was no way he was going to hike those long miles just to bum around Karkat’s hive for a night or two and then leave. Oh, no. There would be  _ dinners  _ and  _ sleepovers  _ and cuddles on the couch and a pile of worn-through fanciful clothes before he would even  _ consider  _ making the long journey back to the ocean. As was the usual, Eridan was exhausted: he carried himself with squared shoulders and perfect posture, not a hair out of place. But Karkat could still take one look at him and recognize the subtle signs of Eridan Ampora, royal-blooded troll and prospective matesprit, worn down from physical activity. The way he tried not to breathe too hard, how his gills were inflamed along the edges from overexertion, the poorer purple-ish tint to his fins and elegant high cheekbones - all signs of a tuckered-out pretentious seadweller with too much pride to be that kind of vulnerable, even in Karkat’s presence.

 

Karkat welcomed him inside with a soft sigh and a heady chirring noise from his chest. He grabbed Eridan by the front of his clothes and tugged gently. “Get inside, you stupid bastard, and quit standing around like you laid claim to the whole front porch.”

 

“ _ Ugh,  _ God.” Eridan let his bag slope down over one shoulder, and Karkat - in a gesture that was as sweet as it was impressive - caught it before it could hit the ground. Eridan smiled when he noticed, but the expression didn’t stick. He reached up and fussed with the strip of purple in his hair, worried a strand may have come loose. He sighed while Karkat found a free spot to set his bag aside.

 

“Tired?”

 

“How did you guess?” Asked Eridan, chin tipped up, some of his airs switching on out of reflex. Karkat only rolled his eyes. He thumbed back in the direction of his room over his shoulder.

 

“Well, I have some capital fuckin’ news for you then, in the form of half boon and half disappointment. I’m not done setting us up for movie night,” Karkat reported. “That’s the disappointment. The boon is you can go borrow my cocoon while I finish doing that if you want.”

 

Eridan clicked his tongue. He couldn’t even be mad that Karkat wasn’t finished working on their first night together for the week; taking a nap in a nice, warm sopor bath in Karkat’s cocoon? After the walk he just had? That sounded like  _ heaven.  _ He cooed audibly, seadweller’s accent bubbling in his throat as he made a few clicks and chitters. “Oooh, d’ya mean it? Y’w-wwon’t be upset if I borrow it for a spell?”

 

“Nah.” Karkat flicked his hands up in dismissal. “Knock yourself out. You look like shit, anyway. Should be done with everything by the time you wake up again, and we’ve got like, a whole week to ourselves anyway.” He shrugged. “Win-win, right?”

 

“Kar, yer a fuckin’  _ saint.” _ Eridan bent down, all lithe and bony limbs almost too long for his body wrapping around Karkat - who, by comparison, was soft curves and rolls of fat all over with a pleasant belly and a round face and only reached up to Eridan’s ribs. Two things he really liked about Karkat, even if the lowblood didn’t believe him. The shortness made Eridan feel better about his gangly height, and everything else was just...cute, and... _ squish. _

 

He squeezed Karkat in his arms, just to make that clear, before taking his beaming self to Karkat’s room. “I’ma go lay down.” He declared, “Just remember, yer my  _ hero.” _

 

Karkat didn’t agree, of course. “It’s just common courtesy!” He called, “Don’t go passing out fucking medals or anything over it! Just get some color back in your face so I’m not rolling you off the couch halfway through the marathon, you hear?”

 

Eridan chirped in response before disappearing into a block full of movie posters and shelves of romance novels in peace. Karkat then turned his attention to the living room, which was only  _ half  _ as much a mess as it was before Eridan arrived, and sighed. To be fair, he’d gotten the big parts of the work done, but he didn’t like anything being half-finished when he had company. Especially when the company was Eridan. At least letting him borrow the cocoon to rest had worked; now he had extra time to make sure everything would be in ship-shape. (Karkat paused, then made a note to himself to tell Eridan about that little mental quip of his later.)

 

Though he couldn’t help but feel like he was forgetting something as he arranged a few things on the couch. Karkat thought about it and thought about it, scowling as he ran down a mental checklist of preparation measures. Plenty of food. Plenty of movies. Games.  _ Tons  _ of books, even a few new ones to show Eridan if he wanted something to take, all painstakingly prepped to be waterproof even. Clean hive (mostly), clean clothes, clean room, a free reclining rectangle that had been shoved into the corner of his block if they decided to…make out…

 

(He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Eridan always got so clingy and touchy, which...it was  _ good,  _ but how much of it was genuine and how much was he just trying to butter Karkat up for a little more heavy-handed concupiscent action?)

 

But yeah, no, he couldn’t think of anything. Karkat shrugged his shoulders and went back to cleaning. He’d worry about it later.

 

* * *

 

The moment he’d stripped down and slipped into Karkat’s recuperacoon to sleep, Eridan was in perfect bliss. The sopor slime had apparently retained some excess warmth from Karkat, as well, since it was his primary sleeping spot, which meant it was  _ cozy.  _ He bubbled happily inside the sopor as he curled up, imagining for a moment how Karkat might sleep here. It didn’t take long at all before Eridan had both eyes closed and his mind had drifted off in peaceful slumber to slough off the fatigue of his travels.

 

Eridan’s head was always full of dreams, and his first nap in Karkat’s cocoon was no exception. Though, most of the time, they were innocent little wishes. Snaps of things he wouldn’t remember come waking time, coupled with flitting impressions of ideas that trickled through his pan. For one reason or another, though, during his brief rest, what started as something surely innocent and inconsequential soon took a much more intimate turn.

 

Perhaps it was the heat that had seeped into the sopor of the recuperacoon, reminding him of how it felt to cuddle with Karkat on the couch. Or it could have been as simple as this was where his unconscious mind decided to wander - which wouldn’t surprise Eridan, and he wasn’t ashamed of it. Karkat was the one who had issues with touch.

 

At least the dream was nice, though.  _ Very  _ nice. Karkat’s warm body against his, all soft flesh and full lips for Eridan to kiss and squeeze and caress kind of nice. He couldn’t possibly know fact from fiction while he was asleep, but Eridan’s thinkpan filled in all the blanks for him to paint an ideal picture: the equalization of their body temperatures as they maintained contact. The contrast of Karkat’s stormy gray skin against his own semi-blanched tone. Softness against angles. Karkat’s faint layer of all-over fuzz against his smoother, water-resistant skin. He didn’t wear his glasses in his dream, but he could still see Karkat perfectly, and dream-Eridan didn’t want to look away. How could he, when Karkat was so willing and cooperative and  _ beautiful  _ in his dreams? How could he stand to turn away even for a second when the one he pitied so much it nearly struck him dead kissed him like he needed Eridan there just to breathe?

 

That was what he thought of it as he slept, as dream-Karkat moved his mouth in a skillful line down Eridan’s torso, hands sweeping up over his grubscars, then down over the sharp jutting curves of his hips. Eridan burred affectionately at the attention, dream-Karkat worshiping him in a little ritual that took him steadily lower until those wonderful, dark lips were pressed against his nook. Then Eridan was witness to his matesprit nosing against his pelvis, soft arms wrapped around his legs, and he felt the warm, slow lap of Karkat’s tongue against his folds and he nearly came undone right there.

 

He couldn’t tell if the moan he made had been out loud or in his dream, but he didn’t care. Dream-Eridan had some pretty fucking great ideas about what Karkat could do with his mouth, and the  _ heat  _ \- that goddamned exquisite sting of his mutant radiance right against his nookfolds, tongue all hot and wet, holy shit. Eridan always wondered if the color difference would be a problem during coupling - he was so far cold and Karkat was so low he dropped off the whole spectrum altogether - but the  _ idea  _ of it was apparently just so exciting his brain took special care to emphasize it in his fantasies. And really, Eridan couldn’t bring himself to say no. It was a good thought. He was beautifully warm, almost numb between his legs now in his dreams, but he could still feel - almost too much - every little flicker of dream-Karkat’s tongue, every soft nip of his teeth, every time he sucked on Eridan’s lips down there. Eridan’s bulge was out and writhing in his dream, coiling and unwinding in curious violet shapes, making a mess of the other’s hair. Dream-Karkat didn’t seem to give a fuck. He just kept eating out Eridan’s nook like it was his sole sustenance; he was a troll on a mission, and he would not be interrupted for anything.

 

Eridan faintly felt the bubbling of the sopor when he moaned again that time, but sleep still had him locked in that beautiful, sinfully amazing wet dream. He didn’t pay any attention, and time had little meaning when he wasn’t awake. He never did orgasm, though the dream continued for what felt like ages. An age Eridan wished would never stop - until he felt a blooming of something dull and wide inside his nook.

 

At first it didn’t quite register as pain. Eridan’s thinkpan automatically tried to adjust, the dream taking on a slightly different tone. Now he was on his back, and Karkat had his bulge in him. It was slick and smooth and fat: a vivid shock of candy-red trying to bury into him up to the root. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t as good as the fantasy that preceded it, either. The awareness in Eridan’s pan started to shift as dream-Karkat pinned him down by his shoulders, growled from deep in his chest and nipped at his gills. It was a surprisingly primal display Eridan would have thought uncharacteristic of him. But he didn’t mind in the end; not really. Call him a color fetishist, but the idea of getting thoroughly dominated by Karkat - wrapped up in his heat, listening to a symphony of concupiscent snarls as he filled Eridan up with that awesome bulge of his - that was a pretty damn good idea too.

 

The fantasy continued to take a turn towards a more baseline desire as Eridan’s pan kept trying to course-correct. He whimpered Karkat’s name in his dream, and Karkat hissed at him non-verbally, bucking his hips in rhythmic rolling motions that had Eridan clamoring for purchase on the other’s shoulders. It kept going, and going, riding the line between pleasant and painful until oh, God, no. Oh no no. Oh, that hurt. Ow, pain. Pain.  _ Definitely pain. _

 

Eridan’s body startled awake when there was another hard push of something wide and thick into his nook. His eyes snapped open and he rolled and flipped around in the slime. Half-asleep, but quickly shocking to alertness, something in his brain told him to fear the worst. Except Karkat wasn’t in the recuperacoon with him. (Of fucking  _ course  _ he wouldn’t, Karkat would  _ never  _ do anything like that, what the fuck was he thinking?) Neither was anyone else, though. But then why the hell did his nook feel like it was getting so painfully stretched out?

 

He popped his head up above the sopor line, slicking out the excess from his hair. Eridan whined, realizing in a split moment that his face was warmer than it should be, and so was the rest of him. The insides of his thighs were also equal parts weirdly numb and  _ super sensitive.  _ Embarrassingly, his bulge was half out of its sheath, too, mirroring echoes of his panic, but undoubtedly wriggling with arousal too. It  _ almost  _ didn’t feel so terrible having his nook stretched like this. Except Eridan reminded himself this was an emergency because  _ any old random thing  _ could currently be shoved up there and he had to find out what it was, weird wet dream fantasies or no.

 

Grumbling, Eridan kept one arm against the edge of the entrance to the cocoon, then reached down with the other to feel around between his legs. His bulge tried to get in on the action and he swatted at it, annoyed, hissing between needle-sharp teeth. Eventually, he found... _ something.  _ At first Eridan found himself thinking  _ what the fuck IS that?  _ He mumbled aloud, “The fuck?” And pulled on it a little, feeling that it was soft and squishy and warm and it got  _ really  _ wide around one part before tapering off near the other end. The big part of it was what currently had itself shoved halfway into his nook.

 

It was when he felt the scrambling of little blunted-off legs, padded for gripping and climbing, that it clicked. In an instant, Eridan was mortified. Nookworm. His lowblooded matesprit had a fuck goddamn  _ nookworm,  _ and said nookworm was currently and merrily occupied trying to bury itself in him.

 

He screamed at a volume he previously never thought possible of himself.  _ “KARKAT!!” _

 

To Karkat’s credit, he knew danger when he heard it. Eridan heard the bang of Karkat slamming open the door to his block a lot faster than he expected, but not fast enough to catch him as he scrambled out of the cocoon. Karkat arrived just in time to see Eridan taking a rather undignified spill, tumbling out, limbs all tangled together and covered in slime, naked as the day he cracked out of his first molt.

 

Karkat was about to ask what was wrong, fearing Eridan might have come across something  _ truly horrible  _ or that they were being attacked. When it registered that the seadweller was naked and flush, however, with his bulge writhing frantically and a nook half-stuffed, lips spread apart by an intrusion, Karkat’s thinkpan stopped working proper for a few moments.

 

The thought of  _ oh, shit, THAT’S what I forgot  _ crossed his mind as Eridan tried to sit up without nudging the nookworm too much one way or the other, and glared.

 

“Forget to bottle up somefin of yours ‘fore I came ov-ver?!” Eridan cried.

 

Karkat blinked several times, and gulped. “Uhhh.”

 

“Hey, don’t just fuckin’  _ stand  _ there,  _ help me!”  _ Eridan gestured wildly to the offending creature trying to wiggle inside him. “I can’t pull it out!!”

 

Karkat shook his head. Yes, right.  _ Right.  _ Nookworm in Eridan’s nook and he doesn’t  _ want  _ the nookworm in his nook, Jesus. Get your head out of your ass for two seconds, Vantas.

 

He strolled over in a few quick steps, intent on giving assistance. Eridan, desperate to be free of the intrusion, reached down to try and yank on the poor thing’s end again, but this only served to make it work twice as hard to bury itself. He yelped, and cried. Karkat shooshed him and pushed his hand away. “Stop, stop, stop. You’re just encouraging it. It’s hungry.”

 

Eridan groaned, and his head was still swimming with images of his dreams and he hated it, because now he knew that this base little creature was responsible for them and the entire fantasy was ruined. “I don’t care if it’s hungry, it fuckin’  _ hurts,  _ Kar, get it out!”

 

“Oh don’t be such a bitch about it, it’s not even to the thickest part yet.”

 

Eridan blinked at Karkat in horror as he reached for the nookworm. “It’s  _ not?!” _

 

Karkat got his hands around its body and gripped firmly, blocking its little feet with his fingers so it couldn’t climb in any more. It still squirmed something vicious, though. Eridan jumped with his whole body, a shock of muscle spasms from head to toe as he squeaked. Karkat didn’t look up. He was  _ very intently  _ focusing on the nookworm, and he refused to move his eyes for anything. Because if he flicked his attention just a hair up or down, he would remember that Eridan was naked and aroused, and that would just be embarrassing and terrible for both of them.

 

However, in his efforts to stay focused, the filter between Karkat’s pan and his mouth was momentarily disabled. “Though I guess if you’re not used to getting stretched that much it could be pretty unpleasant.”

 

Eridan balked at him. Karkat was rubbing his index fingers along the creature’s belly, trying to do _ something  _ while it wiggled and squirmed. “Unpleasant?” He gasped. “ _ Just  _ unpleasant?!”

 

“Okay look,” Karkat grumbled, thick eyebrows pressing together in concentration, “I’m  _ sorry  _ I forgot to scoop up my damn nookworm, alright? Punish me any way you see fit later when I’m not trying to extract it.”

 

“Oh, I  _ intend  _ to!” Eridan exclaimed. Karkat made some more shooshing noises, giving the thing a few more gentle pulls. A slight fraction of the nookworm’s body slipped out of him and Eridan tipped his head back, moaning, immediately embarrassed at the way it sounded - even though that small amount of relief felt amazing. He grit his teeth and tried to swallow his shame. “Can’t believe you left yer fuckin’ toy in the cocoon ‘fore you told me to sleep in it.”

 

“It’s a nookworm, not some debilitating viral infection that’ll kill you on contact.” Karkat said, “Trust me, I’m not belittling the fact that you never wanted this thing crawling up in you to begin with, but what’s the big deal?”

 

“W-Whaddya  _ mean  _ w-what’s the big deal?!” Cried Eridan. The nookworm wiggled. He whined again. Karkat shushed and shooshed, and he - was he  _ cooing?  _ Eridan squinted at him. He was reminded that he actually needed those glasses to see now that he was awake.

 

“Shhhooosh, sshhh, come on, little guy.” Eridan could feel the flutter of Karkat’s fingers as he rubbed along the creature again, inching out just another little bit of it. He could feel a set of legs popping out. There was a vibrating in him when it made a noise of complaint, and  _ oh -  _ that was new. He tensed at the sensation, sucking in a gulp of air. He tried not to think about it.

 

“Thaaat’s it, see?”

 

What the fuck was Karkat doing? Eridan looked at the nookworm, then at Karkat. Was he the fucking Nookworm Whisperer now?

 

The creature made another chirring noise that got him to shudder, and Karkat worked through it, pulling it out that much more. His nook stretched that much less. Eridan stifled a moan. “Yeah, I know, I know you wanna eat up just  _ all _ of my buddy’s material right now, but it’s not fucking dinner time yet, you greedy fucker. Get out of there.”

 

Eridan interrupted, unable to stand how bizarre this was any longer. “Are you  _ talking to it?” _

 

Which, whether intentional or not, now made Karkat acutely aware of the fact that yes, he  _ was  _ talking sweet to his nookworm that was half-buried in his matesprit, whom he’d never seen naked before in his life, let alone in a heightened state of arousal. Thank fuck Eridan didn’t have his glasses on so he couldn’t see how  _ red  _ his face just got.

 

“No!” He blurted defensively, working out another set of legs.

 

“You are! You’re talking to it! You’re fuckin’ cooin’ at one’a your dirty land-dw-wellin’ sex parasites like it’s a fuckin’ w-wiggler!”

 

Karkat finally lifted his head  _ just  _ to glare at Eridan for that “Okay I’ve only gotta pop the head out now, do you want it out of you or not?”

 

Alarmed, Eridan balked back at him, wide-eyed. “You w-wouldn’t  _ dare.” _

 

“Nope.” Karkat gave the nookworm a firm tug - and it came loose. Eridan made a loud exclamation, hands immediately going down to his nook to rub and soothe the folds. Not for stimulation, just because he felt fucking  _ sore.  _ Not that it mattered - he found out soon enough that whatever the little fucker had been doing down there, he was warm and sticky all along his nook and his thighs and just the slightest dusting of fingertips lit up his nerve endings like little festival lights, so Eridan stuck instead to just cupping his hands against himself for comfort and censorship.

 

“Asshole.”

 

“Hey, I got it, didn’t I?” Karkat had the thing clutched between his hands now, and Eridan looked up. He couldn’t see all the details, but he  _ could  _ see how  _ fucking huge  _ it was, holy God. His eyes went wide. Karkat disappeared somewhere to grab a container - a bowl with a twist-lock top - which he opened and took with him to his recuperacoon.

 

“Jesus, that thing is a monster!”

 

“It’s -” Karkat swallowed hard, dipping the bowl-shaped container into the slime and filling it up. “It’s very, uh, well-fed.”

 

As he plopped the nookworm down into its temporary prison and twisted the top shut, Eridan sat up, peering at the fuzzy grayish silhouette of Karkat’s body. “I think you mean  _ overfed!” _

 

“Shut up!” Karkat put the nookworm down in its container, then turned and shot Eridan a bitter look. “What have you got against using nookworms?”

 

“Um, how about the fact that they’re squirmy and squishy and  _ alive  _ and yer not s’posed to have anything  _ alive  _ up in your nook?!”

 

Karkat groaned, rubbing his temples with both hands. “Don’t be stupid. It’s not like they burrow into your intestines or anything. They just eat your genetic material. Don’t nookworms exist in the ocean too?”

 

Eridan reeled back, insulted. “W-What makes you think I’d let those sw-wimmin’ parasites anywhere  _ near  _ my nook?! That’s so totally unacceptable, Kar!”

 

“Unacceptable. Seriously?” Karkat leveled, “Pretty much everyone and their ancestor keeps domesticated nookworms these days, Eridan. Hell, I bet even Feferi’s got a few stashed somewhere.”

 

Eridan  _ gasped,  _ fins and gills flaring. “Don’t talk about her like that!!”

 

“Talk about her like what?!” Cried Karkat. Eridan could see the shape of his arms flailing up in exasperation before it clicked. “Is this another one of your stupid bullshit  _ proper manners  _ things? Am I missing something here?”

 

Bingo. Eridan lowered his head, grumbling. His hands were still between his thighs. He flushed with embarrassment when he remembered what state he was in. “It ain’t right,” he muttered. “I mean - like - okay fine, maybe everyone else does it, but it’s like. It’s kinda  _ cheap,  _ ain’t it?”

 

“Ohhh my  _ God,  _ you’re one of  _ those.” _

 

“I mean I’m just sayin’! W-Why use one’a those dumb mindless things w-when you could go out and find a proper pail-mate, see?”

 

Karkat groaned. “I  _ can’t even  _ with you and your prude-y preachy bullshit right now. I  _ cannot.” _

 

Eridan, for his part, was still mostly distracted. He looked down at himself, then up at Karkat, then down again. He writhed around, uncomfortable and thoroughly disappointed. “Goddammit.” He mumbled. “Just, fuck, man. This was supposed to be all different an’ stuff.”

 

“What was supposed to be all different?” Karkat demanded, assuming Eridan was fit to continue his tirade about the improprieties of using nookworms.

 

But then Eridan started to fidget in place and he wouldn’t look up. Everything came spilling out all at once, but it had nothing to do with nookworms. “Just, I - I know it’s been slow goin’ for ya, gettin’ used to us and all, but I had a plan all w-worked out. I was gonna make it all nice for you. ‘Cause you keep talking about all that stupid cheesy crap from your movies, so I was...y’know. It was gonna be all candles and pretty clothes and fuckin’ mood lighting and shit. I w-wanted to feel good for you. W-Wanted to make  _ you  _ feel good. Fuckin’ never mind, I guess. Plan spoiled.”

 

Karkat stood there, quiet for a while. He had to admit that he was a little surprised. He always assumed he would be the first one making a move when it came to escalating this whole red mess they were in right now; since Eridan had initiated, yes, but there was something to be said about the guy and maintaining consistent effort. He got cold feet worse than Karkat half the time. And while Karkat appreciated that Eridan was considerate of his anxieties around intimacy, fuck, it had been  _ months.  _ Shouldn’t they be moving up or moving on by this point? Hell, it was half the reason why his nookworm had swelled so goddamn huge at this point, and now Karkat felt  _ really  _ bad about it. He took a lot of care in hiding that particular tell from Eridan; it didn’t used to be so sectioned and fat. It really only needed to be fed once in a great while, but oh look, here’s greedy horny Karkat, thinking too much about his new matesprit again. Better shove a worm up his nook until he can’t think anymore. He’d gone just a couple feedings too far, and now the damn thing was hungry all the time, and Karkat just kind of…

 

Well, it was nice to have  _ some  _ kind of intimacy on a regular basis, even if it was just his nookworm and himself. Hence Karkat never really complained. Or bothered to correct the behavior. It would have been easy enough - nookworms were stupid little things and they were easy to train - but he just. Didn’t.

 

Maybe Eridan wouldn’t catch on to that particular point, though. Besides, it made his pusher hurt a ridiculous amount to hear the other so put out about this. It was a big huge deal that Eridan was unexpectedly naked in front of him, apparently.

 

“Okay, first of all, the plan’s not  _ ruined.” _

 

Eridan looked up. Karkat went rummaging around until he found a spare blanket for the reclining rectangle, then went back. It was in Eridan’s favorite color. He draped it over the other’s shoulders and closed up the front of it - and he even set the other’s glasses on his nose so he could see again. Eridan blinked a few times, letting his vision adjust as he took in the features of Karkat’s face as the other crouched on the floor with him.

 

“It’s my stupid fault you ended up like this, and I’m sorry. Usually I’m...a lot better about hiding that thing. Hell, I don’t even leave the bowl out. I hide it with my clothes in the fucking closet. Like, you didn’t even know I had one, right?”

 

He was almost afraid of the answer, though Eridan, after a thought, gave a quiet nod.

 

“Yeah.” Karkat explained, “So, really, it was an accident. A shitty accident, but an accident. But it’s not…” he paused. Hesitant. “You can still do all those things you wanna do, if you want. God, I even  _ encourage  _ it, okay? I’m fucking dying over here waiting on you to make a move.”

 

That perked up the seadweller quickly. “Really?”

 

“Duh, dipshit. Do you need me to write you a hand-printed invitation with cursive fucking flourish?”

 

“W-Well,  _ no,  _ but -” Eridan swallowed, unfurling under the blanket to clutch at the edges with his fingers. “I didn’t wanna be all, I guess, pushy?”

 

Karkat sighed. That was his fault for being so nervous, he supposed. Once again, the onus was on his shoulders. “How about this. Are you hurt right now? Like  _ seriously  _ hurt?”

 

The seadweller ran his tongue over his teeth in thought, then shook his head. “No. Nothin’ stings, it’s just. Sore.”

 

“Okay.” Karkat leaned forward, nuzzling their foreheads together. He purred, deep and throaty, and Eridan responded in a soft series of clicks. “How about you go use my ablution trap. Calm yourself down however you need to and get all cleaned up. When you come back out, we’ll put on a movie or something and just chill. And however you wanna deal with this...we can either pretend this whole thing never happened, or if you want, you can talk to me about it. And we’ll work out how we wanna deal with it.” He stopped again, waiting a moment, thinking something over before he continued. “If that means you wanna do something special this week…”

 

Eridan’s spine straightened up in an instant.  _ This week?  _ His lips curled up into a grin. “Are you serious right now, Kar?”

 

“I said  _ if!  _ Don’t go leaping off on an assumption,” Karkat growled. “But yeah.  _ If  _ you want to, I’ll...think about it. And I mean  _ really  _ think about it. Fair to you?”

 

Eridan chirped and threw his arms around Karkat, beaming. Karkat hugged him back and tried not to think about the fact that he was still naked underneath the blanket. He said he would “think about it”, but hell, if Eridan was that eager to impress him with romantic advances...if he looked just as good or better when there was some effort being put into the scene compared to how he was now, all flustered and caught off guard and unintentionally attractive?

 

Karkat could at least consider diving headlong into it. That wasn’t even a question.


End file.
